Apple Cranberry Bundt Cake

This is a riff on an old family recipe, from my Great-Grandma Susie. She raised her family in a small home in the Alabama swamps. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to spend much time down South, but from the stories that I hear, it was a rare day when you wouldn't find an apple cake waiting on her sideboard for unexpected company. Her cake recipe makes a rich, smooth cake that keeps moist for over a week (thanks to a generous helping of chopped apples and oil).

Today's version included applesauce in lieu of half of the oil (to lighten it up just a smidge), a little extra brown sugar to make things extra sticky, and a few handfuls of fresh cranberries. Topped with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and a dollop of whipped cream, this was a holiday winner! I served this cake after our formal Christmas Eve dinner with family.

Apple Cranberry Bundt Cake
Serves 12-20

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 tbsp lemon juice
3-4 medium apples (cored, sliced and chopped)
2 cups fresh cranberries*

(These can be washed and thrown in whole, or chopped if you prefer your berries to have a little less bite.)

Preheat your oven to 350.

Grease and flour a large bundt cake pan and set aside. (This is an extremely sticky cake - be generous with the greasing and the flouring!)

In a large bowl, whisk together all your dry ingredients.

In a 2 cup measuring cup, measure out your applesauce, oil, eggs and vanilla. Add enough lemon juice to equal 2 cups of liquid, about 3 tbsp.

Add your wet ingredients to your dry ones and stir to combine. This batter is thick, and that is ok. Just mix it up. Fold in your fruit, making sure it is evening distributed.

Spoon your finished batter into your prepare bundt pan, and smooth out the top.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, use a spatula to loosen the sides, and carefully flip the cake out onto a cooling rack to cool completely. If you're lucky, the cake will have cleanly slid out of the pan. If you're even more lucky, there will still be a small amount of cake stuck to the inside of the pan. Scoop it out with a rubber scraper, eat the evidence, and sift a generous amount of powdered sugar onto the finished cake before serving. Nobody will ever know the difference!

Top each slice with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

Sticky, Crumby Fruitcake

If you hate fruitcake, you can just go ahead and stop reading right now. Myrnie and I, co-authors on this blog, both happen to adore fruitcake with a passion. We grew up eating our grandmother's fruitcake every Christmas, the "proper" way - sliced thick and topped with a generous slab of sharp cheddar. Grandma's fruitcake was dense and tended to the dry side (since our loaf wasn't allowed to be soaked in rum), but we always thought it delicious as we didn't know any different.

Grandma, rest her soul, has been gone for over five years now. It was time for Myrnie and I to try and bring back the fruitcake tradition. We both started with bargain bin neon fruit assortments and went from there. Myrnie found a copy of what she believes is the recipe Grandma used. I went with a recipe from King Arthur Flour that was titled Fruitcake Even Fruitcake Non-Lovers Will Love. (Now THAT is a mouthful!)

The verdict? We both prefer our versions best. Figures, eh? Hers came out as dense and sliceable and yummy as we remember Grandma's being. Mine came out sticky and soft and delicious and I can't stop eating it.

(Myrnie? This is your cue to get your recipe written down here so we don't lose it!)

My fruitcake, ready to pop into the oven. 

An inside shot of my finished fruitcake. Check out those glorious day-glo fruits! That's my favorite part...

Half of a finished mini loaf. The other half was my breakfast. Just keeping it real, folks.

I give you...my new favorite fruitcake recipe. I made a few tweaks, so I'll go ahead and share my take here. The original recipe includes slightly different spices, a different assortment of fruit, and a lot of nuts. I didn't have all-spice, I prefer the neon fruit from the baking aisle, and I don't like nuts in my cake. So...there ya go.

Aunt LoLo's Sticky Fruitcake
(adapted from King Arthur Flour's recipe here)

As I prepared this, it makes 12 "mini loaves", or it could make one giant 9x5 loaf

Ingredients:
2 pounds "fruitcake mix" (sold in plastic tubs in the baking section during the holidays - includes cherries and candied citrus peel)
8-10 (minimum) chopped dates
1/2 to 1 cup of juice (I used a cherry/grape/apple blend)
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. baking powder
4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tbsp. cocoa
1/4 cup dark corn syrup

Glaze (I used straight agave syrup, but simple syrup is what is recommended in the original recipe) (Simple syrup is made by cooking equal parts sugar and water in a pot until the sugar dissolves.)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare a half sheet pan by lining it with parchment paper. Set aside.

1. In a medium saucepan, combine your assortment of fruit, and your juice. Cook it over low to medium heat, stirring occasionally. The idea is to plump up your fruit. Mine was particularly chewy, so I added a few extra splashes. When you can easily chew a piece of the fruit, you're good to go. Set the pot aside to cool.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine your softened butter and your brown sugar. Cream those two things together until they are nice and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add your salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and baking powder.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time. Scrape the bowl well after each egg (or use a plastic paddle with rubber scrapers on it).

4. Add your flour, cocoa, and corn syrup. Mix until everything is very well combined.

5. Turn off the mixer, remove the bowl, and dump your batter into the largest mixing bowl you have (at least 6 quarts). (If your mixer has a 6 quart bowl, you're good to go. Just take the bowl off the mixer.)

6. Stir in your plumped fruit and any leftover juice. Make sure everything is combined.

7. Carefully scrape all of your fruited batter into your prepared pan. Pop your pan into the oven, and set the timer for 90 minutes. Start checking it every ten minutes after an hour. The cake is done with a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs, not a smear of dough.

8. When the cake is done, carefully remove the pan from the oven (you have nearly 3 pounds of yumminess there - it's heavy!). Immediately brush the top with your glaze of choice and then set the pan aside to cool. When the cake is completely cool, flip it out onto a cutting board and use a long, sharp knife to slice it up.  I cut mine into 12 "mini loaves". Wrap each piece up carefully and tightly in plastic wrap.

Enjoy!

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Potato Pancakes (i.e.–Easter Redux)

Edited to add: My father reminded me that these pancakes are also awesome with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of chives.


According to family tradition, this is my father’s absolute favorite way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. (Also, according to tradition…this recipe goes back to bachelor days, so we know it’s a goody!)

The biggest surprise was that the four year old ate it! The two year old had two bites, in exchange for two strawberries. (But he did finish all of his ketchup.) Eh – you win some, you lose some.

So, here you go – Easter on a plate!


Poppy’s Potato Pancakes
Ingredients:
3 cups mashed potatoes
1 egg
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cheese (I used swiss)
1/2 cup ham, cut into bite-size chunks
Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl
Preheat a griddle over medium heat, with some canola oil.

In a bowl, combine all ingredients with a spoon. Use a small scoop to scoop out balls of the dough and put it on your pre-heated skillet. Cook until brown and toasty on the one side, then flip over and use a spatula to smash it into a patty shape. When the second side is golden, you might want to flip it back to the first side just to crisp it up.

Enjoy hot, with a little ketchup. Delish!

Oreo Pops

These were so simple to make, but they turned out pretty cute!

You'll need:
Oreos (either Double Stuff or twice as many cookies as you want pops)
Lollipop sticks
Chocolate (almond bark, candy coating, or chocolate chips and shortening)
Bling (Jelly Beans, Coconut, sprinkles...whatever!)

(Lollipop sticks, Lollipop bags and candy coating can all be found in a crafts store, such as Michaels or Hobby Lobby.)

If using Double Stuff: carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cookie.

If using normal Oreos: carefully separate each cookie, making sure that all the filling is on one side of the cookie. Set aside the "naked" half to munch on while you work. Lay a lollipop stick on the "cream" half, and top with another "cream" half. Gently push the two sides together to mold the cream around the lollipop stick.

Place your "sticked" cookies on a plate and put them in the refrigerator to chill for 15-20 minutes. (I'm told this helps the chocolate stick to the cookies better. It also helps the cream set up so your sticks won't come sliding out.)

While your cookies cool, melt your chocolate in a tall, narrow mug. If using almond bark or candy coating, melt according to package directions. If, like me, you'd rather use the chocolate chips hanging out in your baking cupboard, in your mug combine:
1 cup chocolate chips
1 T. shortening

(The shortening thins the chocolate out so you don't get such a gloppy chocolate coating.)

Microwave for about 90 seconds, stirring every thirty seconds.

Carefully dunk your cookies down into the chocolate to cover, and tap the stick against the side of the cup to knock the excess chocolate back into the mug.

Lay the coated cookies on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper or a silicone baking mat. Press your desired Bling into the chocolate and leave the cookies to harden. (If using almond bark or candy coating, this will take about 10 minutes. If using chocolate chips, allow at least an hour.)

When hard, carefully remove each cookie pop from the baking sheet. I put my finished Oreo pops inside of small lollipop bags and tied them up with curling ribbon.

Enjoy!

Aunt LoLo's Pumpkin Bread

When I was about 17, I had a girlfriend who was crafty/domestic in really quirky ways. She didn't bake, but she made centerpieces out of silk butterflies. She never served cookies at Christmas, but handed out homemade jelly, sealed with paraffin.

One year, for Halloween, we decided that we simply should not throw out our jack o' lanterns after the evening's festivities. Instead, she showed up at my house at 9:30, when it was time to blow the candles out and call it a night. We sliced, diced, steamed, baked, peeled and mashed those jack o' lanterns into about 30 cups of pumpkin puree. We split up the spoils around 2 am, when we finished, put them in our freezers, and continued on our merry Holiday Season Way.

When it came time for Christmas baking, I knew just what to make - Pumpkin Bread! We had a fabulous party, every year, with all of our singing-type friends and would go around my neighborhood, carolling at every door. This year, I decided to give them something more than just a song. Pumpkin Bread for everyone.

Unfortunately, I didn't count before I started baking. I baked and I baked and I baked. All day long, I baked mini loaves, working in an assembly line fashion. At the end of the day, I had over 90 loaves of pumpkin bread...and not nearly that many neighbors. We dragged the loaves around in a red wagon, handing them out to everyone within 5 blocks of my parents' house. The remainder went to a church party that weekend, where we were barely able to hand out the last 20 loaves.

I've only ever used one recipe, and I just don't think I could switch now! Last night, as BBJ and I were preparing and freezing some of the pumpkin left over from Halloween, I knew it was time to make my Pumpkin Bread!

Note - when using pumpkin from a large jack-0-lantern type pumpkin, it is important to drain it before using it. Otherwise, your dough will be much too water-y. I sliced, seeded and peeled my pumpkins, then steamed them. When the pumpkin was nice and soft, I pureed them with an immersion blender and piled the whole mess into a "draining contraption" of my own design - a large bowl fitted with a tea-towel lined colander. I left the pumpkin there for at least 8 hours, to let the water drain away, and then packed it into sandwich-size zip top bags and put those in the freezer.

Aunt LoLo's Pumpkin Bread
(adapted from Joy of Cooking)

Makes 1 large loaf or 3 small loaves or 12 muffins and one small loaf.
(I used to quadruple the recipe and bake in small, disposable loaf pans. I loved the pretty, fluted edges.)

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together:

1 3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Add 1/3 cup powdered milk. Set aside.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat together until light and fluffy:
1 1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
2 eggs

Add 2 cups pureed pumpkin, mix to combine.

Prepare 1 cup of water. Set aside.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in three installments, alternating with the water. (1/3 dry mixture, 1/3 water, 1/3 dry mixture, 1/3 water, etc.)

Bake in a greased pan, of your choice, until the bread shrinks away from the sides of your pan and a toothpick comes out no more than crumby. The bread should be moist, but not doughy.

A large loaf pan will bake for about an hour. Small loaf pans will bake for about 45 minutes. Muffins bake for about 35 minutes. Check often as the timer nears "O".

This is delicious spread with a little butter for breakfast, or plain, straight off the counter, for afternoon tea!

Pink Salad

Can I call this "my" recipe if I couldn't find an exact match in the first 20 google hits on "Pink Salad"? They all had sweetened condensed milk, pecans, pie filling, beets, or potatoes (??). So, here is my traditional, Easter, Pink Salad. I make it every year, I grimace as I buy the ingredients and empty all the packages into my bowl, at least 3 people groan and say "Oh my" when I take the lid off, and yet...we all eat 3 helpings each!

Ingredients:
1 small container Cool Whip
1 large container cottage cheese (1 pound?)
1 package strawberry flavored Jell-O

Mix together in a bowl. Don't try to use sugar free anything, it will taste bitter and separate. If you want to feel a little better about this, mix in a can or two of fruit cocktail or other fruit that you like. For the family gatherings, I normally use 1 large Cool Whip, and two of everything else. It almost fills my largest Tupperware bowl! Make sure you let this rest in the refrigerator for a few hours, so the gelatin and sugar can dissolve and the tastes can meld.

Enjoy!